HANSARD

NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

COMMITTEE

ON

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Wednesday, December 3, 2025

COMMITTEE ROOM

2025 Report of the Auditor General - Follow-up of 2020, 2021 and 2022 Performance Audit Recommendations

Re June 2022 Report of the Auditor General - Oversight and Management of Government Owned Public Housing

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
 

Public Accounts Committee

Susan Leblanc (Chair)

Marco MacLeod (Vice-Chair)

Hon. Brian Wong

Tom Taggart

Tim Outhit

Dianne Timmins

Lisa Lachance

Hon. Iain Rankin

Hon. Derek Mombourquette

In Attendance:

Kim Adair
Auditor General

Kim Langille

Committee Clerk

Gordon Hebb

Chief Legislative Counsel


 

WITNESSES

Department of Growth and Development

Chris Morrissey - Deputy Minister

Vicki Elliott - Associate Deputy Minister and Interim CEO Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency

Pam Menchenton - Executive Director, Client Services, Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency

Diane Saurette - Chief Operating Officer, Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency

HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2025

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

9:00 A.M.

CHAIR

Susan Leblanc

VICE-CHAIR

Marco MacLeod

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Good morning, everyone. I’m going to call the meeting to order. This is the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. Our mandate is:

We are established for the purpose of reviewing the public accounts, the annual report or other report of the Auditor General, and any other financial matters respecting the public funds of the Province.

My name is Susan Leblanc, and I am the Chair of the committee and the MLA for Dartmouth North. My pronouns are she/her. Before we begin, please make sure your phones are on silent. If we need to leave in an emergency, we’ll exit through the Granville Street doors and meet at the Grand Parade. I’m going to ask committee members to introduce themselves, starting with the member on my left. Go ahead.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

THE CHAIR: We also have with us the officials from the Auditor General’s Office, the Legislative Counsel Office, and the Legislative Committees Office here with us today. On today’s agenda, we have officials with us from the Department of Growth and Development regarding the June 2022 Report of the Auditor General - Oversight and Management of Government Owned Public Housing. It feels like Groundhog Day because I think it was only two weeks ago when most of you were here in front of us. I’ll ask the witnesses to introduce themselves, beginning with the person on my left.

[The witnesses introduced themselves.]

THE CHAIR: Just a reminder that when you’re called upon, make sure your microphone is lit up in red. You don’t have to do anything with your microphones. Also, if committee members have heard enough of an answer, they can feel free to clearly get my attention, and I will call order and we’ll move on to the next question.

Before we begin, or before we get into questioning, I’ll ask Deputy Minister Morrissey to please make some opening remarks. Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: Thank you very much, and good morning, Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss Nova Scotia’s public housing agency and the progress we’ve made in addressing the Auditor General’s 2022 recommendations.

Since the creation of the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency in December 2022, we’ve merged five housing authorities into one unified organization, established a new governance structure from the ground up, and modernized technology, policies, and procedures to ensure consistency and fairness across the province. From the outset, we’ve taken the Auditor General’s recommendations seriously. They have given us a roadmap for continuous improvement. Eight of the 20 recommendations are complete, five are under review by the OAG, and the remaining seven are on track for completion by 2026-27.

Some of our key achievements include updating our lease package and tenant handbook, transitioning more than 12,000 households to a single, standardized lease agreement, and moving all households to the same rent‑geared‑to‑income model. We’ve also introduced new policies to improve fairness and transparency, such as implementing a formal appeals process and strengthening the Priority Access policy. Since late 2023, more than 500 households have been housed through priority streams for homelessness and family violence.

We’ve also introduced policies that reduce wait times for housing. As an example, we removed the rule requiring applicants to live in the municipality where they apply, and we are addressing over-housing by transferring tenants into appropriately sized units, freeing up housing for nearly 200 families from the wait-list. Technology upgrades now let people apply for public housing and manage their applications online. The upgrades give us more accurate performance and tracking information, improve accountability, and ensure that we uphold standards of service.

Government is also investing more than ever before: $251 million to complete 515 new RGI public housing units; 37 are already complete. Another 64 will be ready this year. Once fully built, these homes will provide safe, stable housing for up to 1,300 Nova Scotians. More than 20,000 Nova Scotians live in public housing. Tenants never pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and we provide stable housing in both rural and urban communities. Public housing is a critical part of the housing spectrum, and we are proud to serve Nova Scotians across the province.

Chair, ours is a story of steady progress and continuous improvement, always with a goal of providing better service to our clients. We are very proud of what we’ve been able to achieve, but we know there is more to do. Our priority remains to move more Nova Scotians into safe, deeply affordable homes faster. Thank you, and I welcome your questions.

THE CHAIR: Thank you very much, Deputy Minister Morrissey. We will begin our first round of questioning. MLA Lachance.

LISA LACHANCE: Certainly, we all share the knowledge and the conviction that actionable housing is really important. We know people across Nova Scotia are struggling to afford their homes. We hear from folks every day. We need to be making investments in housing that Nova Scotians can truly afford across the spectrum. Obviously, public housing that is well managed and that is well supported is an important part of addressing the housing crisis.

Both the progress report updates from the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency in November 2023 and the Auditor General’s follow-up audit in October 2024 found that only 40 percent of the recommendations from the 2022 audit have been completed. You outlined where things were at. I think that we are still seeing a wait for the progress on the recommendations from the Auditor General. We haven’t seen improvements in the majority of the areas. I’m wondering: Why has progress been so slow and when will Nova Scotians - you’ve talked about 2026-27, but how realistic is that? Why has there been such a wait for progress on the key areas?

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I’ll start, and then I may defer to Pam who may give a little bit more information with respect to the progress. There were quite a few recommendations coming from that particular report. We’re proud of the accomplishments to date with the things that have been completed, but like building a house, this is building a foundation and having the right pieces in place at the right time. We took a slow and steady progress with respect to consuming the information that was provided to us to ensure we put together a plan to get the things done in a correct order, and making sure that we’re also consulting with our stakeholders and various other people involved to ensure that we’re doing things in an appropriate manner.

Working on 21 or 22 things at a time would not provide us that focus. We worked on the things that were a priority for us, and we continue to work on the things that are important for us. We’ve made very good progress year over year, and we will continue to build upon that progress with respect to the recommendations from the OAG.

Anything to add, Pam?

PAM MENCHENTON: I know that you have that 40 percent has been complete. We’ve actually submitted an additional 25 percent to the Auditor General’s Office. Subject to their approval, we feel confident that we now are at 65 percent. We feel that we are confident, and on track to meet all of our obligations by 2026-27.

Some of the recommendations are co-dependent. We had to finish Part A before we could get to Part B, or Part B before we could get to Part C. There were some technology upgrades that we needed to put into place. Those can take some time, as most folks would realize - things like case tracking. We have Rent Cap A, which means it’s a portal for applicants to submit their applications online and allows them to change those applications if they need to and update information. They can track the status of that application as well. Quality assurance processes couldn’t be completely done until we had some of the technology upgrades in place as well. Those things have taken some time.

I do want to point out that we feel that we’ve got 65 percent - again, subject to the AG’s approval, but that’s where we are right now.

LISA LACHANCE: I think one of the concerns, of course, is that in the meantime we’ve only seen the housing crisis deepen and we’ve seen the wait-list for public housing increase quite substantially. One of the AG’s recommendations is that there be public reporting - regular reporting - on wait-list numbers and waiting times so that Nova Scotians can have a sense of the environment for public housing.

We’ve submitted access-to-information requests and things do seem to be getting substantially worse in terms of the wait-list. In 2022, when the original audit was done, the AG highlighted 5,950 applicants on the wait-list. That number has since increased to 8,200.

A question for the deputy minister is: How do you think rising rents and other aspects of the housing crisis are contributing to the growing wait-list in public housing?

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I think right across this country and around the world, we are going through a housing crisis. This is not unique to Nova Scotia or unique to one part of Nova Scotia. The demand for housing and affordable housing has been increasing everywhere. No one level of government and no one person and no one organization is going to solve this problem. Working together with the many different stakeholders that we may have described two weeks ago around some of the affordable rent programs that we have in place are very important to our success of trying to meet the needs of the clients we’re trying to serve.

We have over 20,000 Nova Scotians in 12,000 units. We’re doing multiple different things with respect to the reduction of the wait-list. We have reduced the vacancy rate, as an example, from three years ago from 5.2 percent down to 2.7 percent. The turnover time for units is another important factor - making sure we can turn over those units faster so we can get more people into those particular units, and making upgrades to the apartments and units that we have to make sure that they are constantly being upgraded and we’re not waiting. Building 515 new homes as part of our program is a part of that. I think there was some good news in the media yesterday with the increase in . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. That’s how clear I need you to be.

MLA Lachance.

LISA LACHANCE: I appreciate those updates as well. But just to go back to the question - you have the benefit of having a bird’s-eye view of what’s happening in the housing sector. How do you see the impact of rising rents and other policies like the fixed-term lease loophole and the misuse of the fixed-term lease impacting the public housing wait-list?

CHRIS MORRISSEY: The fixed-term lease doesn’t really apply to the public housing sector with respect to what we’re trying to accomplish. Our role is to provide as much public housing to our Nova Scotians as possible. The ways that we’re trying to fix the problem are providing more access and affordable rents in this particular sector is by building more units, making the turnaround time of getting the units available for us faster, trying to put people in the right-sized units that are required - trying to free up capacity wherever we can, as fast as we can.

I know that people within the agency, the over 500 people working for us and with us, the first thing they think about when they get up in the morning is how they are going to affect their clients. That is something we are constantly thinking about every single day with respect to the agency and the good work that they’re doing.

LISA LACHANCE: I don’t think we can think about this in isolation. Certainly what I’ve seen since 2021 - I get letters from seniors all the time who have been in rental units who just not seeing their pensions or whatever other source of income they have raising at the same rate as their rent, and . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. I’m sorry. If you need to speak, you can flag the Chair and speak on your microphone. Thank you. (Interruption) I’m sorry. It is the NDP’s time right now, so unfortunately, I am not going to let you speak. You can ask the question when it’s your turn. (Interruption) Yes, that’s right.

[9:15 a.m.]

MLA Lachance.

LISA LACHANCE: I’m just trying to tell a bit of a story that outlines what I’ve been seeing. Seniors are really just down the fact that they can’t afford their housing anymore, and they’re ending up on the public housing wait-list. I receive letters all the time from constituents. I can provide those. There are folks who are former teachers on teachers’ pensions who are just not able to keep up with the cost of housing. They’re like, I guess I’d better go on the public housing wait-list, because I’m only so old and I’m going to be around for a long time.

I do think that there is a connection. I can let the question go, but I don’t think that in particular, from your perspective, you have a lot of the housing instruments under your department. On one hand, we can’t blame the housing crisis on the global context without being willing to make some of the links in our own context, I would say. Why is the department not responding to the AG’s recommendation that the wait-list information be publicly reported?

CHRIS MORRISSEY: We do produce information with respect to wait times and wait-lists. We are working on it every single day with respect to it. I think it’s important to reflect that any one day is just one point in time, and if you look at different times of the year with respect to wait-lists, you can see the fluctuations up and down. I think we need to be careful of looking at just the one pinpoint in time that may be a peak for a variety of reasons that people are moving out and moving in, as an example.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. I’m going to pause your time, MLA Lachance, and I’m going to ask MLA Taggart if he has a point of order. If he has a point of order, I will accept it, but if he’s just going to talk to me off the microphone, I cannot hear that. Do you have a point of order? MLA Taggart.

TOM TAGGART: We are discussing a report that’s entitled, The Report of the Auditor General - Oversight and Management of Government Owned Public Housing. That department does not have - in my view, anyway, correct me if I’m wrong - anything to do with short-term or long-term rentals or any kind of rentals. Why do we continue to be able to use that in a preamble to try to force that issue forward? The Chair doesn’t seem to think that that’s inappropriate.

THE CHAIR: Excuse me, MLA Taggart, last week we discussed what the Chair should and shouldn’t allow in a preamble, and I heard very clearly from this committee that I was to allow the members to take their privilege and say what they need to say through parliamentary privilege in preamble. I heard that loud and clear from everyone, but I am going to consult with Legislative Counsel as to whether or not this is a point of order. (Interruption)

This is not a point of order. You can speak and you can say whatever you need to say with your privilege in your preamble time.

We will begin the time for MLA Lachance again. We’ll add a minute and a half to your time. MLA Lachance.

LISA LACHANCE: Could you clarify how much time I have left?

THE CHAIR: So that is 9 minutes, 28 seconds.

LISA LACHANCE: Ten minutes. I definitely take the point that a number on January 1^st might change by March 1^st, but that begs the question: Why not provide public, regular updates? We do it in other provincial services. That gives Nova Scotians a sense of how things are going in different sectors like health care. I’m just wondering why we wouldn’t do this in public housing.

THE CHAIR: Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I’ll defer to Pam who has more details on this.

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: I invite you to take a look at our website. We do have a number of statistics on our website, including an idea of wait times per district. We don’t publish individual wait times, obviously, on our website, because they’re very particular to individuals. I want to mention something about wait times. Any tenant or applicant can call our offices, and we’ll give them where they are in the wait list. Typically, we would say something like: You’re in the top five or the top 10, or something like that. We don’t generally say: You’re number 12 or number two - because there are a number of reasons why that number could change. Chiefly among them is that we could have a priority access applicant who comes in and all of a sudden, you’re not number one anymore because someone got in ahead of you.

We try to manage expectations a little bit, but also give a lot of information on our website that would help people understand the general idea of when they’d be able to access our housing. So we do have a website, and that’s something new that’s happened since the agency was formed.

LISA LACHANCE: I think the question is obviously protecting people’s privacy and allowing for priority programs, which are really important. Overall, in terms of the numbers on the wait-lists, it’s a hard number. I know you said it would give an idea, but it is a numbers-based piece of information.

So that we don’t have to file another access-to-information request, can you tell us today how many Nova Scotians are on the public housing wait-list?

PAM MENCHENTON: Yes, I can. It’s around 8,400. I’ll get the exact number here - 8,431.

LISA LACHANCE: That’s an increase from the last time we had an update. If this isn’t shared with Nova Scotians - this is a part of the picture of housing in this province. It’s a part of where government needs to respond. I still don’t understand why that couldn’t be reported on a quarterly basis in a public way for Nova Scotians to know.

I heard the comments from across the table in terms of the scope of this discussion, but surely, Deputy Minister, you can see the path from continually rising rents and other affordability challenges to people’s housing precarity and the pathway to being on the public housing wait-list. The rent cap isn’t working. We’ve seen rents increase in Nova Scotia last year by 28 percent.

For the deputy minister, how have you been working across the department to consider the impact of one policy on another?

THE CHAIR: Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: The housing crisis that’s upon everyone will not be solved by any one department. We are working with OSD. We are working with the Department of Municipal Affairs. We’re working with municipalities. We’re working with many different organizations to work on this particular problem.

Specifically to the public housing and units that are available, all of those units are rent geared to income. The 30 percent maximum charge for rent is ensuring the affordability for those people who are living in public housing. We are trying to increase and are increasing the capacity of new units built - as I described, the 515 units. Some are constructed and some are under way. We’ve announced some sites that are being looked at. Increasing that capacity will also assist.

We have other programs within the department to deal with the affordability, but the demand for housing - not just unique to Nova Scotia but everywhere - has gone up everywhere with population increases and things like that. That’s a good sign with respect to economic development.

LISA LACHANCE: Since I’ve been elected in 2021, what I’ve seen in my constituency and what I’ve heard from people is that we could slow down the need for public housing and we could stabilize the rental market. We could give people greater certainty by other policy levers. That is things like the fixed-term lease loophole. That is things like the 5-percent rent cap. I do think they are relevant for this discussion. Folks on pensions are living on fixed-term leases, and their pensions aren’t increasing by 28 percent and average rents are.

We now have a Minister of Housing. When was the last time the Minister of Housing was briefed on the use of fixed-term leases, and has the Minister of Housing met with the Minister responsible for the Residential Tenancies Act?

CHRIS MORRISSEY: We brief the minister every single week on items with respect to the Provincial Housing Agency and the Department of Growth and Development. That particular policy - fixed-term leases - is not within our purview within Growth and Development. That’s over at the Department of Service Nova Scotia. I can’t say when those things have been reviewed, but we have not briefed our minister specifically with respect for that.

LISA LACHANCE: The other question I asked was, has the Housing Minister met with the Minister responsible for the Residential Tenancies Act?

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I’m being told he’s going to meet with him tomorrow, but there’s constant communication between ministers on an ongoing basis about government business. I understand there’s a meeting tomorrow.

THE CHAIR: MLA Lachance with three minutes.

LISA LACHANCE: In the 2022 report, there were 11,202 units of public housing. I know that there have been 515 announced, but some are not in progress. They’re commitments; they’re not actual housing yet. What is the number today of units of public housing in Nova Scotia?

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I’m going to defer to Pam in a second. Obviously, building a house takes time. The planning part of it takes an amount of time. With respect to the budget, that’s been allocated for over $250 million. It’s the first time in 30 years where public units have actually been announced and been funded. Progress has been made with several - which Pam will get into - but it’s the first time in many decades that there’s been a focus on public housing and moving forward. Pam can give you the specific details.

THE CHAIR: MLA Lachance, do you want to hear from Ms. Menchenton? Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: Right now, we have 12,018 units. The reason that the increase took place is because we brought a lot of legacy programs that we were actually property managing into RGI. There was a grand effort to change all of those property-managed units to RGI. There’s a four-year phased approach to bring everybody up to RGI. That’s why there’s an increase.

Can I also just mention something about the wait-lists? There is a great effort to get people off this wait-list as soon as we can. That’s what we do as an agency. We traveled around the province last year and we talked to all of our staff. We looked them in the eyes and said, “Your key role is to get people off that wait-list as soon as possible.” When the deputy minister talks about unit turnaround, we’ve reduced the vacancy rate, we’ve reduced wait times for both people on the regular wait-list as well as priority access - by 64 percent, actually. We’re also looking at the wait-list . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. I’m sorry. There’s very little time left. MLA Lachance.

LISA LACHANCE: I do apologize, and I do appreciate the numbers, but I think one of the things that I see is that we could have avoided the growth on this wait-list. We could have had policies that kept people in the housing they had. The least expensive housing and the fastest housing is the housing that people have. What I have seen is that the combination, since 2021, of the fixed-term lease loophole and the 5 percent rent cap, which hasn’t been a 5 percent rent cap has been that it has just created a lot of insecurity and precarity. I know folks are working to reduce the wait-list, but I would love to see a world where we’re not growing the wait-list would really be much more ideal. I think we could do that with policy changes.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Time for you, MLA Lachance, has elapsed. We’ll move on to MLA Mombourquette.

HON. DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: Thanks, everyone, for being here today. My first question is: Is anyone on the wait-list - how often are they contacted to get an update?

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: They’re contacted once a year to validate whether or not they still need public housing, if anything about their circumstance has changed, if their household numbers have changed. We just want to make sure that we’re allocating the right units for the right size of their household, among other things. We check income and so forth as well to see if they’re continuing to be eligible for our housing.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: I will get into some questions here around the data. How often are you updating the data? We’re hearing conversation now around the wait-list. The wait-list has increased over the years. We see it all over the province. We see it at home, as well. I will say the staff at home are great. The staff in Sydney are great. They support folks right across the Island. They’re easy to deal with, but the fact of the matter is that that number is still increasing. Is the department or the agency looking at actually updating that information to show people how many are on the wait-list?

[9:30 a.m.]

PAM MENCHENTON: Absolutely. We do quarterly reports. We update all of our data. We look to see where there are some trends happening and whether there are some gaps or opportunities that we can address. This information gets shared with all employees because it’s not just the senior management who own these numbers and who own the effort to try to get people off our wait-list. This is a 365-day-a-year operation, and every single day we’re trying to get people off that wait-list quickly. Yes, we do share all of our data with our folks, and it is on our website as well, for the most part.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: That’s really the question; it’s around the website. I personally think it was like the health care information that used to be reported that the government removed. I don’t know why they did, but in this case, I think the more information you can provide to the public on the website would be important.

I do have a question. This was a policy change that happened in the last few years. It goes to the conversation around the wait-list again. It’s a balance because the policy change around ensuring that people who are homeless or struggling to find and put a roof over their head, they take priority over the wait-list. How has that worked? I know that people have been on that wait-list for years, too, who are in similar situations. Not extreme situations, but similar in the sense that they can’t afford where they’re living now. That’s why they’ve put themselves on the list. Has that impacted the wait-list significantly or in any measure by doing that?

PAM MENCHENTON: We have a priority access stream, as you’ve pointed out, for those who have been homeless which I hope makes sense. Those without a home should get a home first. We have three other categories as well. To date, we have housed 672 priority-access applicants since 2023, and 365 of those are from the homelessness stream. I do want to talk about that a little bit.

We have a partnership now with a number of agencies - shelters and housing support workers with the Department of Opportunities and Social Development. We now take referrals from those groups as the experts in who is homeless and who needs housing first. We marry that up with our wait-list, so that’s how we get recommendations and referrals, let’s say, from that world in order to take folks from homelessness into our housing.

We are part of the spectrum. We’re not emergency housing. That’s where shelters and transition homes and so forth come in. We’re in the place to provide permanent forever homes for some if they need it from that stream. I think it’s been very effective. We’ve really had a great partnership, and it continues to be very successful for those who are able to be housed. Has it affected the wait-list? Well, it’s added to the wait-list, certainly, but how could we not house those individuals? They’re urgent. That’s one of the things that we do: we make sure that those who are most in urgent need are getting housing first.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: I agree. It was a policy change in the last couple of years, and I was just curious to see if and how it was going. We want to do whatever we can to make sure we put a roof over everybody’s head. I know that in Sydney, in a lot of cases that policy has put a roof over people’s heads. I appreciate that.

My next question is going to be around the report itself. In December of 2023, the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency submitted a progress report to the Auditor General’s recommendations to the Human Resources Committee. The report claimed that 100 percent of the recommendations were on track for completion by 2024-25, and the AG’s 2025 follow-up reported that 10 or 12 of the 20 recommendations remain complete. I know we’ve talked about this. Do you want to elaborate on where the department and the AG actually are when it comes to that follow-up?

PAM MENCHENTON: Just for clarity, you said that was the 2022 report?

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: That’s the 2023 report.

PAM MENCHENTON: The 2023 report. Yes, we’re currently having that validated by the Auditor General’s Office. These were four recommendations that came in the 2023 report around procurement, alternative procurement, and conflict of interest. We’re confident that the work has been done to satisfy those recommendations, but that’s up to the Auditor General to validate that.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: I’m jumping all over the place, just trying to get it all in. I want to go back to the policy change when it came to supporting folks who were experiencing homelessness. On the wait-list, how many people were in that situation when you’re looking at that? They may not be officially on the wait-list, but across the province, how many folks have you been able to house based on that policy?

PAM MENCHENTON: Since the policy came into effect - because it used to only exist in metro, and then we expanded it to the other three districts - we’ve housed 365 households since that policy came into effect.

I’ll mention that we also have a stream for those experiencing gender-based violence or domestic violence. We’ve housed 151 households since that policy came into effect. Overall, 672 folks have been housed from our priority-access wait-list.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: That’s important information to have. Moving forward, the government has talked heavily about the fact that all of this new housing is coming, but again, we’re all concerned by the fact that that wait-list has increased significantly. Arguably not by the fault of the agency - I think ultimately, we have a government that’s saying they’re going to build all of this housing.

Do you feel confident that we can make a huge dent in that wait-list in the next 12 to 24 months?

PAM MENCHENTON: I feel confident that we can improve the time it takes to get people off that wait-list. That’s where we’re really going. Like I said, we had a 5.2 percent vacancy rate back in 2021, and now that’s been cut in half to 2.7 percent. We’ve accelerated the time it takes for people to access our housing - well, I should say we’ve reduced time waiting for anybody on the regular wait-list - let’s see - by 26 percent, and then for PA, it’s been 64 percent.

Again, we’re really making all of our efforts about trying to get people off that wait-list and into our housing as quickly as we can.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: Do you feel that the rent supplement program in its current form will help with that wait-list? Do you find a lot of families - is that an option for them to do that? That’s something that we’ve talked to residents about in our office, and something that multiple governments have used over the years. If I can get an update on that and how that’s helping to support families - or do you feel that there need to be any changes to that program?

PAM MENCHENTON: I’ll just say one thing about the public housing wait-list with respect to the relationship with rent supplements, and then I may to pass it over to the deputy minister or to Vicki.

Right now, because of a policy change that took place in 2022, I want to say, folks who are on the public housing wait-list can also collect a rent supplement. We don’t want them to be in an unhoused situation while they’re waiting to get into our housing. We know that there are waits. That’s a benefit that’s changed over the last couple of years.

I’ll hand it over to one of my colleagues here.

THE CHAIR: Ms. Elliott.

VICKI ELLIOTT: There’s really not much to add, as Pam said that the policy change allows people to be on the wait-list for public housing and receive a rent supplement. Before that, the rent supplement was actually created to get people off the public housing wait-list. But there are some people who prefer a rent supplement - then they have the choice in where to live - and others prefer public housing. Now they have both options. They have a choice, which was integral for the rent supplement program.

When you think about our broad spectrum as a whole - when you combine the 9,600 rent supplements along with the public housing - we have over 12,000 public housing units, and then you combine that with all of the other social housing units that we’ve supported through our community providers - and those are just the ones we know about - we have about 25,000 affordable units across the province. All of those combined are what support those who need affordable housing. They may be accessing one but looking into another, so there is some overlap across them too.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: I wasn’t aware that people could actually get the rent supplement while they’re waiting. How many - I think you might have just given that - how many folks now who are on the wait-list are actually access a rent supplement?

VICKI ELLIOTT: Twelve hundred.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: I’ll go back into the report itself. I want to go back to the data. It’s important, because as I said, we’ve seen the government remove a lot of data from various departments for whatever reason, data that they actually used to get elected and deleted it after they did. I want to go back to the fact that we just feel that there needs to be a lot of transparency around this. We get this question asked a lot about data.

The one commitment we want to come out of today for us is the fact that we want to see, ideally, monthly data. We want to see the wait-list updated regularly so Nova Scotians can see it. It’s transparency. It’s Nova Scotians’ money. They’re the taxpayers. I think the more data that we can provide to the public, the better. Can the department commit today to updating that data on a monthly basis so Nova Scotians can see the current status of the wait-list, can see any of the progress that government’s making, who’s in the rent supplement program? This is important information. People are receiving rent supplements. I’m not asking for personal data. It was like the Health. Every month, it was updated. We knew in every region who was seeking a family doctor. We had percentages. You could track it. Nova Scotians would talk to us about it, and then the government deleted all that information. Now they won’t release it to the public.

I would hope that we can do that in this department, where we don’t make that mistake and we show Nova Scotians who are paying for these programs and wanting to support people, that the information is there. Can the department make that commitment today, that they’ll update on a regular basis all of the information that I believe Nova Scotians have said they want to see?

THE CHAIR: Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: We are giving information, and information is available through enhancements to the website. We’ll take that back for consideration to see what makes sense with respect to time and effort, with respect to updating information as required. We’re constantly looking at those trends from a senior management perspective. Pam?

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: We do update the information quarterly on our website now. Maybe not as much as we could, so we can look at all that as the deputy minister said.

THE CHAIR: MLA Mombourquette with six minutes.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: I appreciate that. As I said, I was on the government side for seven years and lived that information every day. Nova Scotians would call and they would ask why this trend is happening or that trend is happening. They would refer to that health care doctor wait-list. When the government were in Opposition, they used it every day to hold us to account, and they deleted it. I hope they don’t delete this information as well.

I’ll ask this question. In October 2025, the NSPHA published their overhousing policy. My question is: What percentage of households living in public housing units were found to be living in oversized housing?

PAM MENCHENTON: You mean at the beginning, when we first introduced the policy? Right from the start? It would have been close to 2,000 households that would have been overhoused. We have started down the road, of course, of enforcing this policy around overhousing. For those who don’t know, it’s about right-sizing the number of bedrooms that a household would need. An example is that we’d have a senior, for example, or a senior couple whose children have grown up and moved away, so they no longer need all the bedrooms that they used to. What we’re trying to do is move them or transfer them within public housing. They pick three locations, and we work with them, obviously, to make sure they remain in their community and near supports like family and friends, if they’d like.

So far, we have been able to house 188 families as a result of the overhousing policy. It’s not a lot. It means a lot to those families, I’ll just say, but we have to make sure that a unit has opened up before we can move them. It does take a little while, and we do work with those families to ensure that we move them to a location that they’ve chosen that they’re comfortable with. We help them with their move; we pay for their move. We recognize that this is a lot to ask of individuals, so we support them all along the way.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: Also, the AG’s 2022 report found that the provincial housing portfolio had constant restructuring and turnover of senior staff. Do you want to elaborate on that? We always want people to be happy and healthy in the workplace. I also know that these are high stress positions where you’re trying to really help people find housing. I noticed that the deputy minister wants to talk about it, Chair, so I’ll pass it over to the deputy minister.

THE CHAIR: Deputy Minister Morrissey.

[9:45 a.m.]

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I think we’ve been very focused on trying to come up with the right structure with the evolving nature of the agency itself - so consolidating the five regional offices back to one, having a corporate office with respect to looking at things such as data analytics. There are different competencies. There are different structures. That takes time.

We are trying to make sure we have the right people in the right seats to be effective in what they’re trying to do. No one person is going to solve this housing issue or correct any changes that may be required. It’s a full team effort. There’s been a lot of consistency with many of the same people driving the business with respect to the agency, and we’ll always take a look at the talent. Do we have the right people doing the right jobs moving forward? Just in the last few months, we have dedicated a full-time COO. Diane is now on the job with respect to moving this file forward. She’s very competent and has been in the system for a long time, so understands the challenges. Pam has been around for a very long time with respect to public housing as well, and being involved with the public service. We have the right people doing the right jobs, but we’ll constantly evaluate to see if we have the right talent to make sure we’re being effective in what we’re trying to do.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: In the HSPHA website, it says it’s March 31, 2025, there’s a 2.4 percent vacancy rate in public housing units. This would equate to about 288 vacant public housing units. Can you elaborate on why they would remain vacant? How long do they remain vacant before you can place someone in them? I’ll start with that question.

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton with one minute.

PAM MENCHENTON: There are different reasons why a unit may remain vacant for longer than another unit. Some we can flip in under 30 days. Some take a little bit longer because of the condition of the unit once the person had moved out or the family’s moved out. Sometimes we have some challenges getting trades to do certain work before we can move ahead with some other work that we have to do. We’re facing the same challenges with access to resources and contractors and so forth that other builders are facing right now. That can sometimes add to some time.

We do try to flip them sooner, and we try to come up with some ways and strategies to hasten the unit getting back into service. That’s always a goal. For example, we do annual inspections of the unit that we weren’t doing consistently before. We go in a month before the individual moves out so that we can make a plan as to what needs to get done. Then we can be right on it as soon as the individual moves out and flip that unit more quickly. There are some strategies in place to try to move those units back to service as soon as we can. Some of them do take longer.

THE CHAIR: Two seconds, so I’m going to call order. Very well done. We’ll move to MLA Outhit, please.

TIM OUTHIT: Thanks, folks, for being here again. It’s nice to see you in here, and all the wonderful things you’re doing and trying to do.

I want to talk about the wait-list, which sounds like it’s more and more of a moving target than I would have thought because of people being able to be added to the priority list, and some being able to get rent supplements, etcetera. What options do the wait-listed applicants have to get off the wait-list? What are ways to get them off the list in addition to providing them all these things in the goal of providing the housing?

PAM MENCHENTON: We work with our clients and our applicants to try to help them if they can be flexible with respect to where they’re able to live. We had asked them to pick as many locations as possible. Sometimes there are lines that are shorter than others because we don’t have one big line. There’s a line for every location that somebody wants to live in. The more locations you choose, the greater the opportunity you may have to move off that wait-list.

We also have introduced some policies to help move people off the wait-list sooner. For example, we used to have a three-refusal rule, and now we’ve reduced that to two refusals to try to hasten that - again, trying to get people off our wait-list as soon as possible. We’ve removed municipal residency requirements, which in the past meant that you had to live in the district where you were applying in order to get that home in that district, but now you can live anywhere in the province. If you have family and friends, for example, in Cape Breton and you’re able to move there, that may open up an opportunity for you that doesn’t exist in Metro where the greatest demand is for housing.

TIM OUTHIT: You mentioned in your opening comments that the desire, the objective is to not charge folks in public housing more than 30 percent of their income. What do we do with that revenue? How’s that for a question? Where does that rent go and how do you use it, the rent revenue?

THE CHAIR: Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I’ll start; Diane would have more information specifically around some of the financial information. Obviously, that rent collected is going towards the operational costs and day-to-day of making sure all of our buildings stay up-to-date as best as we can, with respect to operating dollars, and then other things that are required to run housing. Housing is not a cheap business. Certainly, there are costs associated with it, maintenance associated with it, many different components. I’ll turn to Diane to give just a little bit more context with respect to the numbers.

THE CHAIR: Ms. Saurette.

DIANE SAURETTE: The budget for the agency is just over $176 million. We get revenue, because we are a Crown corporation that is a consolidated entity, so we have a revenue, but then we also spend it. The revenue comes from three sources. Tenant revenue, as you had mentioned, is about 43 percent of the revenue. The rest comes from the Province, as well as the federal government. We get about 47 percent from the Province and just over 17 percent from the federal government. Most of the federal government money goes towards our infrastructure.

The budget, as the deputy minister had said, we operate. We have staff, we have bills, we pay the lights, we have maintenance and operations, snow removal, and all the things that come with running a housing agency. There is a lot of investment that goes back into our units. As we mentioned, we have 12,000 units. This year, between operating and some TCA - some capital budget - we have about $80 million. That’s not including major infrastructure, which would be our new builds. There’s a lot of investment that goes into maintenance and operations, renos - these are the maintenance renos. The unit turn. That’s a little over $9 million. Then we have about $30 million in infrastructure and our capital. That’s the bigger type of repairs that we have to do. You can replace a roof on a seniors building and it’s $1 million.

A long way to get around to your question, but our tenant revenue and the revenue that’s received goes right back into the agency, and it goes into supporting our housing units.

TIM OUTHIT: That’s a pretty good answer for somebody who’s been only there a little while. She wasn’t sure how much knowledge she was going to have. You’ve done well. You’re a numbers person, that’s right. My next question, I think it was Ms. Menchenton who mentioned help for folks experiencing family or gender-based violence. Can you tell me how you go about that and what impact that might have on the waiting list?

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: We do have that as one of our priority access streams. We’ve made a concerted effort to work with our partners at OSD, shelters, transition homes, and so forth to make sure that we have a dedicated priority access stream for anybody fleeing domestic violence. We also prioritize anybody within our units who may be experiencing domestic violence transfers out of a unit. Perhaps there are some issues with a partner, for example, so we make sure we prioritize those transfers to another unit within our portfolio.

We do work with, like I say, housing support workers, with OSD, and we also get referrals from those groups. In the same way that we accept referrals from those groups for homelessness, we accept those referrals as the experts. We are not the experts in what constitutes domestic violence and so forth. We recognize it, of course, and we all know what it is, but we do rely on those experts to tell us, “This person really needs to be housed quickly.” We make sure that they’re put on the priority access wait-list and get them into housing as soon as we can.

TIM OUTHIT: I think MLA Timmins is next.

THE CHAIR: MLA Timmins.

DIANNE TIMMINS: Thank you, everyone, for coming today. It’s great questions and answers by both sides. I know that the applicant portal launched in 2023, representing a major technical upgrade. Can you describe how this has improved efficiency for both applicants and staff compared to the old system? I do realize the old system didn’t publicly provide any details when it came to the wait-list and so on, but has this improved your operations as a department?

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: It absolutely has. If you can imagine, everybody was filling out their applications manually and bringing them physically to an office to process. Having the opportunity to be able to fill those applications out online - about 50 percent of our applicants now have moved to an online application option. We still would accommodate manual applications if that’s the preference of the applicant, but we’ve reduced application turnaround time from 35 days to 17 days.

The portal also allows applicants to update their applications online. They can check the status of their application. There are a number of positive benefits to moving this online and being able to track. We are attaching a quality-assurance method to that as well. It’s been a great benefit to those who are interested in completing their online application.

DIANNE TIMMINS: So that provides the applicant a chance if they become a priority access or need priority access - if their living situation changes, it does provide them an opportunity to do that as well online?

PAM MENCHENTON: Yes, it does.

DIANNE TIMMINS: I’m going to move on to my next question. I do realize that many of the recommendations have been completed and also in progress. What policy changes have the NSPHA made beyond the OAG’s recommendations?

PAM MENCHENTON: I have a list. I’ll just give you some samples of some things we’ve done over and above. It also may explain a little bit why it’s taken us a while to get some of these AG recommendations under way. We’re still committed to the date that we provided, which is 2026-27, to have them all completed, but we’ve done other things while we’ve done the recommendations - not to mention that we’ve stood up an agency. We’ve created, I hope, a corporate culture of getting people off that wait-list quickly. We’ve introduced mission, vision, and values. We’ve brought senior teams together - they’d never met before, when they used to be the five separate independent authorities. There are a number of things we’ve been doing to try to hone the effort into making sure we deliver the best client service possible.

Just as some examples of things that we’ve done: There’s a new standard RGI rent model for all public housing tenants. There’s a new standard lease agreement for all tenants, and tenant rules. We have a new elections policy and disclosure of client personal information policy. We have information-sharing agreements with the Department of Growth and Development as well as OSD. We have a new equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility committee that didn’t exist before. A number of other HR initiatives - we’ve had customer service training for every single person in the agency across the last year. This is supporting our client engagement strategy.

We’ve introduced a new tenant handbook, so that’s online as well; that very clearly talks about the roles and responsibilities of tenants versus the landlord and helps people understand what the rules are while they’re living in housing, and also what they can expect from us and what they should expect from us.

Under asset management and operations, we have a new maintenance IQ software. Our maintenance folks now have an iPad, or they can use their phones as well, to submit work orders and update some of those work orders in real time in the field. Otherwise, they’re driving in their trucks back to the office and logging it in. This is now connecting them in an electronic way - now we can track and look at trends and so forth with respect to the work orders they’re doing. It allows them to do it onsite. That’s been a big heavy lift. We’ve had to provide training and so forth around that as well.

We’ve upgraded our client and asset management systems. We have a new occupational health and safety program. We’ve partnered with Build Nova Scotia. There are a whole bunch of things we’ve done over and above what the AG has wisely recommended that we take a look at. There’s been a lot of work going on. We’re three years old as of December 1^st. We feel like we’ve done a lot, but we know that there’s still a whole lot to do as well.

DIANNE TIMMINS: Will a lot of those changes help you complete the recommendations going forward that are necessary for the Auditor General’s report?

PAM MENCHENTON: I’ll give you an example. The client engagement strategy is still pending. That’s something that we will hopefully have in place by 2026-27 as committed. There have been a number of foundational pieces that we’ve had to really put in place in order to have that strategy really be a full and working strategy at the end. Technology upgrades, for example - we have case tracking now. That’s something where every single time a staff person interacts with one of our tenants or an applicant, it gets recorded.

[10:00 a.m.]

We have a quality assurance process around case tracking now as well. We can check back to see if we’re doing what we said we were going to do in the time that we said we were going to do it. The case tracking helps us then identify where there may be some anomalies, for example, and then we can remedy that anomaly based on what’s been written in the case-tracking file. A lot of this has been foundational work to achieving some of the recommendations that the AG has recommended. Like I said, a lot of this has been foundational to the client service strategy that we’re hoping to have in place by the end of 2027.

THE CHAIR: MLA MacLeod.

MARCO MACLEOD: I think it’s fair to say you guys bounced around between a couple departments earlier on. I was curious: Did that cause any setbacks? Also, are you in a good place now to make some meaningful change?

THE CHAIR: Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I’ll start, and if somebody else wants to contribute to that - I think we’re in a much better place than we have been. We are continually looking at quality assurance programs to look at how we can do things better. That continuous improvement cycle which includes feedback from the Auditor General on ways we can improve our systems - we welcome that feedback. When we get that suggestion, as you can tell from Pam already, we’re not just working on those suggestions. There are many other different things, and the early stages of setting up an organization takes a lot of work and takes a lot of people to get involved.

Not one department here; we’re working with many different departments. For example: Build Nova Scotia is a good example of how we’re looking at how to better improve our processes around capital construction. They have an organization set up that does that work. Working with Build Nova Scotia and that structure helps us and alleviates some of the other stresses around the agencies standing up. Do what you need to do. Make the clients more forward facing and deal with the clients. With Build Nova Scotia, with their competencies around building and capital construction, that alleviates some of the concerns that we didn’t necessarily need within the agency itself. That’s one example.

The tools that Pam talked about, some of these new tools, productivity tools that we’re implementing, it’s about efficiency of services. Making sure the tasks that people are doing are having a positive impact on things like wait-lists. This information we can provide back to other departments as needed. Working closely with OSD or the Department of Municipal Affairs, whomever the case may be, is also very important for us. There’s a lot of work that’s done between departments, between the agencies’ own departments, and trying to work together collaboratively to try to affect the conditions with respect to the affordability of housing across this province. Anybody else want to add to that?

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton. (Interruption) You have five minutes.

PAM MENCHENTON: I just wanted to tag onto what the deputy minister has said there. I think we have a pretty resilient agency. I know that there have been some senior changes and so forth, but for the most part, the staff who are on the ground in the field have remained the same. We have a lot of people who have been with us for 20, 25, 30 years. They know their stuff. They’re passionate about what they do. You only have to just go talk to anybody anywhere just to know how committed they are to our clients.

I would just say that while there are some changes at the top, the agency really has remained pretty steadfast in what it’s there to do. I would say that every single person in the agency is dedicated to that purpose: looking after our clients, looking after our buildings, making sure that the infrastructure is safe and remains affordable and available to low-income Nova Scotians. We also, again - I will say this a thousand times. Our goal is to get people off that wait-list as soon as we can, and everything we do is about that.

MARCO MACLEOD: In the Auditor General’s report, there were some questions asked. One of them basically is asking the department if there’s an organizational approach to quality assurance addressing priority access placements. You did answer MLA Mombourquette’s question talking about a priority access stream. You also mentioned two other streams. I was wondering if you could talk about what the system in place looks like for the priority access stream and then also those other two streams that you briefly mentioned there.

PAM MENCHENTON: We actually have four priority access streams: homelessness, people fleeing domestic violence, inadequate housing, and then those who need to be located near a hospital because they need to receive life-saving care. Those are four urgent categories for us. We ensure that we house the most urgent applicants first. We have a quality assurance system that’s now in place for unit allocation. That means we can’t noodle with the wait-list, so the person who comes to the top of the line goes to the first unit. The quality assurance piece is that we are indeed making sure that the first person at the top of the list gets that unit.

There are some exceptions - as there always are with anything. Somebody may not be ready to move if we call them, or they refuse the unit. Somebody’s circumstances may have changed - they need a larger unit than they did initially when they applied. We’ll accommodate those things, of course, but we’ll note them and make sure those anomalies are noted in the quality assurance. We just need to make sure that those are legitimate reasons, and that somebody has signed off on that. If there’s a reason to go back and check to see why this happened, we will do that. It’s a bit of an audit of ourselves.

THE CHAIR: MLA MacLeod with one minute.

MARCO MACLEOD: I’ll go back to the very start: Recommendation 1.1 of the Auditor General’s Report. It’s talking about implementing structures in systems and taking action to determine and address the root cause of specific issues. It’s always easy band-aid solutions, but when we talk about finding the root cause and being able to address that, have you guys been able to come up with a system that you can place to find those root causes?

PAM MENCHENTON: I think that’s what all this accountability is and addressing some of the recommendations that the Auditor General provided to us, as well as some of the other things that we’re doing. We’re very data driven. We take quarterly stock of where we are with things with respect to how quickly we’re turning around units, how many people are on the wait-list, where there are opportunities we can address gaps and find out what’s going wrong or what’s going right, and capitalize on good practices that maybe happened in one district, making sure that we’re using that good practice and bringing it to another district. We’re always watching that - always. It’s sort of a day-to-day occurrence where we’re very data driven, and looking at the numbers to see where there are opportunities for us to improve always. There’s always room for improvement.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Thank you very much. We’ll move back over to MLA Lachance with 12 minutes.

LISA LACHANCE: You shared earlier that there are currently 12,018 units of public housing. I’m wondering: Have any older public housing units been taken out of circulation? Have any units been closed down?

PAM MENCHENTON: I don’t have the number. Very few, but there have been some because it costs more to renovate than it would to divest and then put the money into, perhaps, a new public housing unit. We have had some circumstances where folks have had a legacy agreement where it was a lease-to-own situation from the federal government. Those come before us as well and those are considered. I can’t give you the number today, unfortunately. I’m sorry. I can get that for you.

LISA LACHANCE: That would be great if you could provide that. As you know, we’ve had the chance to discuss the public housing units for seniors in my riding. This is a large portion of the population who need support with housing. Last year, 4,819 public housing units were designated for seniors. Has that number changed?

THE CHAIR: MLA - Ms. Menchenton. Not MLA Menchenton. (Laughter)

PAM MENCHENTON: I don’t know the exact number of the units that are for seniors at this moment in time. Perhaps one of my colleagues could give me a sticky note on that one - 8,316. Most of our housing is dedicated to seniors. Most of our housing is one-bedroom units. That’s 70 percent of all of our available units right now are for seniors across the province. That’s a number from . . .

LISA LACHANCE: Previously, 47 percent of those on the housing wait-list were seniors. What’s the percentage now? I’m also wondering, of the 515 new public housing units that have been announced, how many are dedicated for seniors?

PAM MENCHENTON: All the new housing is going to be mixed demographics. We have one-, two-, and three-bedrooms in all of our new housing. I can’t say precisely how many one-bedrooms we would have for individual seniors, for example, but right now we have - in our new housing - is this correct, Diane? (Interruption) Oh, on our wait-list. Sorry. Across the province, 3,754 seniors are waiting for housing.

LISA LACHANCE: Just to clarify, despite the commitment to seniors and the overrepresentation of seniors on the wait-list, are none of the new 515 units being dedicated to seniors?

PAM MENCHENTON: Yes, they would be. As far as dedicated to seniors, yes. We serve seniors and families, mostly. Those single-bedroom units would be senior units. There may be couples as well that move into those single-bedroom units.

LISA LACHANCE: And in your follow-up information, can you provide the number of single units of the 515?

One of the things - I mean, as you know, there are H.P. MacKeen Manor and Joseph Howe Manor in my constituency. I spend a fair amount of time visiting with folks and helping facilitate their concerns to the agency. One of the things that the folks in MacKeen have been concerned about is that it seems like folks are being moved in who aren’t seniors. They’re wondering if their building has been declared multigenerational or not a seniors building. If you could clarify that - if that is the case with MacKeen, and if it is the case with other buildings in the province.

PAM MENCHENTON: There are a couple of buildings in the province that are now multigenerational. This is in response to demand that we’re seeing. We are geared mostly to seniors and families. One of the reasons for the overhousing policy is to try to open up more units for families, because we don’t have as much stock for families.

With respect to seniors - our senior number is 58, as you know. We have some folks who are under the age of 58 who also are requiring very low-income housing, and we don’t really have a lot of units for those folks. This is an effort to try to - where we can, and being very thoughtful about it - if there’s an opportunity to move a person who’s under the age of 58 into a building where it may be the right fit, we look at all of those things and then we may be doing that.

[10:15 a.m.]

With respect to H.R. MacKeen Manor, that hasn’t been declared, necessarily, a multigenerational building. I’d love to know what specific examples you may have. I can look into that. Maybe there are one or two folks who have been moving in who are under the age of 58, but I can’t say for sure. That would be an on-the-ground operational decision - again, based on client need, and there may be some priority access issues there.

LISA LACHANCE: The current wait-list of 8,431 - sorry, I have a whole bunch of numbers written down in front of me, and now I’m getting lost in them. Compared to the 515 new units that have been announced - that’s 4 percent of the wait-list that will be directly addressed by these new units. Of course, we know that building housing is complicated and can be a lengthy procedure. What are you doing to ensure that, in fact, the units are being built and on time?

THE CHAIR: Ms. Saurette.

DIANE SAURETTE: It’s been announced that we have now a team at Build Nova Scotia. We are working very closely with Build Nova Scotia. I think it’s important - it’s really frustrating when we don’t see shovels in the ground, but there is a lot of work happening. When it comes to infrastructure, that foundational piece is important so that when we do start construction, we can just roll with it. With Build Nova Scotia, in the agency we have an infrastructure team, but now we have this team that we’ve been able to create at Build Nova Scotia so they can focus on our major infrastructure and our new builds. Our infrastructure team within the agency can really focus on the units and the unit turn.

With Build Nova Scotia, there’s a lot of work happening, and it’s all working in alignment. We’re looking at sites. There are lots of sites across the province. We’re focused mostly on provincially owned land because then we don’t have to have land transactions and all that kind of stuff. It takes time. That takes time. We’re looking at standardized design, so we have a design consultant on and they’re working on the design. We’re engaged with municipalities. We’re working with industry. We’re also working with procurement on the tender documents. It takes time before you can get that shovel in the ground, and it’s creating that foundational piece.

We announced last week four sites. There are more. There will be some more announcements on that. We’re expecting that tender documents are going to start to go out early spring and construction starting spring/summer. I think that we’re on time. We’re just not seeing the shovels in the ground, but there is a lot of work happening.

LISA LACHANCE: I want to go back to the current commitment - I think maybe the deputy minister can clarify - is a $250 million investment.

THE CHAIR: Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I think it’s just a little over $250 million that’s committed on the capital side, correct.

THE CHAIR: MLA Lachance with two-and-a-half minutes.

LISA LACHANCE: That’s, at this point, targeting 4 percent of the wait-list that seems to keep growing. I guess I’m wondering: Within the department, have you done cost benefit analysis around issues like policy changes that would just keep people in the homes they already have? The $250 million is a huge investment that, if we kept people in the homes they have and we kept people off the wait-list, could be applied in other ways. What kind of cost benefit analysis has been done that $250 million could be used to help people have safe and secure housing?

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I’ll start and, again, I’ll ask others to jump in here. This is the first time in many decades where a quarter of a billion dollars is being spent to increase the capacity in public housing. That’s a significant increase. We are working with our non-profit sector as well about building up capacity for more affordable units and trying to be as creative as possible. Private sector is starting to fill in the gap here with more new builds being constructed in different areas across the province. There are policy changes that have been instituted through the agency itself with respect to making sure we have the right-size units for the people who are in them.

We’re always looking, I think, through the continuous improvement cycle to ensure that we have the right policies for the current day. I would just state that we are continually looking at different policies to incorporate to reduce the wait times which is our biggest priority at this point in time, knowing that there is limited capacity available right now and over the long run. Increasing capacity in housing in general will help alleviate some of the problems that we currently have right now.

LISA LACHANCE: The Housing Supply and Services Act that passed in 2022 included the creation of an advisory board, but currently the board is not listed with other existing agencies, boards, and commissions. Has this advisory board been established?

THE CHAIR: Deputy Minister Morrissey with 10 seconds.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: There have been no appointments to the advisory board as of yet.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. I will move on to MLA Rankin.

HON. IAIN RANKIN: I do want to talk about non-profits, because I think they’re going to be an integral part in how we move the needle. I wanted to ask a question, because I think it was said the main focus is to basically take people off the list as fast as you can. Is the bigger focus to just manage the growth of the wait-list, or is there actually an effort to reduce the wait-list? As it was said, 515 units, with 8,200 people on that list, which has grown since 2021 when there were fewer than 6,000 people.

It seems like we’re managing the growth, and we’ll be able to take about 1,300 people off the list eventually when these units are actually open, but is the department focused on just using the finite resources that we have to build as much as we can and manage the system more effectively with the support of the recommendations, or is there an effort to reduce the list? Do we think we’ll ever be at a point where we’ll be able to reduce the number and not just manage the growth of the number?

THE CHAIR (Marco MacLeod): Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: I think we’re trying to do both. Obviously, the first priority is to reduce the wait times so people can get in homes faster, where we can do that. We are doing that through change of policy and increase of units. I think it’s on us as well, with a growing population - we don’t have the same population as we did 30 years ago. There’s an increase in population, so more units will be required. That requires substantial resources. It also requires substantial planning time. In order for us to get buildings in the ground and being built, that takes some time.

I think over time, our aspirations are certainly to reduce the wait times so people can get in homes quicker, but without some additional capacity, whether that’s in the public sector or the private sector, both will help us with respect to trying to increase more availability of housing for everyone. I think we take both as significant priority areas for us in trying to do the things we can with the limited resources we have available to us from our department and from our government.

If we can lever through non-profits, I think there’s been a great job done on the non-profit side of trying to leverage some of the relationships we currently have with some of the funding that they do have, and working with the non-profits that we work with - that we work with - Adsum for Women and Children and others, YWCA Halifax. You look at many of the different things we’re trying to do. Anybody comes to us with a solution, we’ll talk to them. We’ll suss it out and figure out, “Is this the right solution for us? Does this have a net benefit of wait times or wait-lists?” If it does, we’re willing to have a conversation with them to see what we can do. Whatever is in the best interests of lives of Nova Scotians - I can tell you Pam and her team are dedicated, 365 days a year trying to reduce the wait times and improve the wait-list.

IAIN RANKIN: I think there are opportunities for non-profits. I just want to ask: Since these reports came out, since 2020, how many non-profit providers have come to the department to look at applying for some of these programs? Have you seen an increase since some of these recommendations have been advancing? Have they presented obstacles in the process of going through these programs in terms of what you have, in terms of the department to deal with how they deliver housing? Have you improved or looked at your own capacity on how you deal with your staffing complement and how you organize program funding for them to fit the criteria that they have so they can actually build?

I just see a massive opportunity. Adsum for Women and Children is one, but there are many that have the liquidity, they have good governance structure, and they can move fast, so that we can supplement what the government’s not able to do.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: Vicki may have more to add on this particular file. I think the number is in around the 10-11 number with non-profits that we’re engaged with, with non-profits. I think they have done a very good job in concert with government and in concert with the private sector. If you look at the YWCA and Mount Hope Village, what they’ve been able to achieve there with a private sector partner and building capacity - there are little stories that people don’t know about some of the work that Clayton Developments is doing with respect to increasing capacity, whether that’s supplying some equipment or supplying some of the lessons learned from the private sector and how they do business and transferring them over to the YWCA, as an example.

There are many of those different examples of working with non-profits. I come from the non-profit sector; I can speak about this. They’re very innovative with respect to resources available.

Again, we will look at any partner who is willing to come to the table, the resources they have, whether that’s finance people, funding, and we’ll lever it to the nth degree to ensure that we can get more resources available to the housing sector in this particular piece. Do you want to add anything to that, Vicki?

THE CHAIR (Susan Leblanc): Ms. Elliott.

VICKI ELLIOTT: You asked about staffing capacity - have we changed that, have we added any new programs, or how we have responded to the non-profit sector. Since I started in this position four years ago this month, actually, we’ve engaged heavily with the not-for-profit sector. We’ve listened and we’ve responded. A great example of that - I keep coming back to the Community Housing Acquisition Program because oftentimes we were hearing, particularly coming out of COVID, about renovictions and private developers buying up naturally affordable housing, and then renovicting people and turning them into higher-priced market rents.

With the Community Housing Acquisition Program, not-for-profits can now borrow money from the Province because they find it difficult to get private investment and acquire naturally affordable housing. Those will stay that way in perpetuity. We also introduced the capital grant that helps them with their downpayment. They’ve not only used the CHAP program or our loan program to purchase naturally existing affordable units, but they’ve used them as a way to leverage their own equity so that they can then start to purchase their own units on their own.

We’ve really started to create a domino affect within our community housing sector that’s really great to see. You look at $283 million in about 3,000 units within our community housing sector alone. In chatting with one of our partners just a couple of months ago, he said that prior to 2021, they weren’t sure that they were going to survive, and now they’re thriving. Again, I would say we’ve been incredibly responsive. We’ve created an entire unit within our staff complement that works directly with the community housing sector in order to support and grow it.

IAIN RANKIN: Who would I point to in terms of a contact for a group that is much smaller than an Adsum or a YMCA? I’ll just say them because they’re working on a project - the St. Margaret’s Bay Housing Coalition team. They’re a relatively new non-profit. They are registered. They’ve gotten all the MPs and councillors together, and they actually have the potential to have land, potential for developer partnership. Do they have to do the federal phase first in CMHC, or can they work with someone within the department to look at options for that? Capital funding would be a good option, but they may have land and leverage in that. I think that’s something that non-profits and community organizations can bring to the table to help provide equity on a project.

VICKI ELLIOTT: There are a couple of options there. The Community Housing Transformation Centre, which is another organization that’s been created since 2021, funds capacity-building. They’ll provide early planning grants. In addition to that, we have our new not-for-profit housing association run by Trish McCourt. Her focus is also on building capacity, connecting early providers with very experienced providers to provide mentorship opportunities, and so on. I would recommend one of those two options, for sure.

THE CHAIR: MLA Rankin with four minutes.

IAIN RANKIN: I appreciate that. I’ll maybe get a contact from you.

In the small amount of time we have, I want to talk about - my colleague asked about units that have been closed down. Do you have the number of units that are unrentable right now, and do you track a target date to get them back into the supply? I think it was mentioned that you check them annually. Are there any units that are overdue? Is there a percentage of units that have not been checked annually, or you’re quite confident that they all are now?

PAM MENCHENTON: I’m confident that they’re all being checked annually, but let me check and let me see if there are any outstanding that we’re still trying to get to. This is a relatively new - not a new program, but being implemented consistently now that we’re an agency and we’re able to ensure there is some fairness and consistency across the province.

[10:30 a.m.]

We have about 300 vacancies, I think, at the moment, but that’s because we have about 100, give or take, move ins/move outs every single month. There’s always going to be a vacant unit that we have to turn. Some take longer than others, as I mentioned, because of the condition of the unit after the tenant left or because of not having access to an electrician, for example, who needs to come in and do some work there, or not having access right away. There are a few reasons why that would be happening.

We do have targets for . . .

IAIN RANKIN: I just want to ask, do you have a process better now on preventive maintenance? Do you do condition assessments? There’s just a reputation that a lot of public units are falling apart. Do you actually have the data that looks at the condition assessments and looks at the repair backlog? Do you have that data all available?

PAM MENCHENTON: Yes, we have a whole assessment process that we go through for each of our units. Our portfolio is, on average, about 40 years old, so we do experience some heavier lifts sometimes when it comes to having to renovate some of our units, but we do track that.

Maybe I’ll ask Diane to jump in on that one.

THE CHAIR: Ms. Saurette.

DIANE SAURETTE: The infrastructure team do facility-condition indexes. We are also doing planning. There’s a lot more planning. Getting into the units ahead of time is also - and the annual review of the units is also helpful to us for understanding. But when we’re categorizing the unit turnaround, we’ve got the four categories. There’s one quick - so that’s under 30 days that we can get in and out, and there’s not a lot that needs to happen. Then we have another - I’m just going to read the categories here.

We have a standard, which is more moderate repairs, a little bit . . .

THE CHAIR: Order. MLA Rankin, please.

IAIN RANKIN: Do you have that total figure - the aggregate total of how many millions, probably, would go into that number of repair and maintenance that’s required right now?

THE CHAIR: I’m sorry, the time has elapsed. Perhaps we could ask Ms. Saurette to forward that to the clerk. Great. Thank you.

Moving on to MLA Taggart, please.

TOM TAGGART: Today’s meeting is about the follow-up to the June 2022 Report of the Auditor General - Oversight and Management of Government Owned Public Housing. I was on this committee at that time. I’m not certain if others were or not. It was probably, in my view, the second-most alarming report that we’ve dealt with at this Public Accounts Committee. There were strange things happening, and maybe some improper things - I don’t know. That’s all on the record. People can go to that and see.

In your comments today, it’s been clear that it’s really been an outstanding job done to really bring that sort of credibility back, or the professionalism back, to the department. We’ve gone from a vacancy rate of, at that time, 5.2 percent to 2.7 percent. You spoke about - I don’t have it noted - the turnaround time. Lots has been said, and questions have been asked and answered about that - comments about transparency, overhousing. I think there’s been a lot of great work done.

I guess my question is, are you aware of anybody currently in public housing who makes over $100,000 a year?

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: Yes, we are. These would be as a result of some legacy programs that we brought into public housing. Earlier a member said that we used to have 11,000-and-change public housing and now we’re up over 12,000. That’s as a result of bringing some of those legacy programs into our fold. There would be a very small number of individuals or households that would be over $100,000 - very small.

Right now, we have over HILs around 3 percent in the entire portfolio - a very small number of individuals. Most are under HILs in our portfolio. There may be just a handful - and I mean one hand - of individuals who may be over $100,000 a year.

TOM TAGGART: What was that you said? “Under hills”?

PAM MENCHENTON: My apologies. That’s the household income limit. This is the guide that we use, and it’s set by the CMHC, so a federal body. It’s across the country. They determine what the income level should be to be considered eligible for public housing, low-income housing.

TOM TAGGART: So $100,000 is considered low-income, is that correct?

PAM MENCHENTON: No. They would be over HILs, so in effect, not eligible for the program, but because they’re in a legacy group, we brought them into our portfolio, and now we have a four-year runway for them to go to full RGI. They may self-evict at the end.

TOM TAGGART: So a legacy project.

THE CHAIR: MLA Taggart, is that a question?

TOM TAGGART: I said, “What’s a legacy project?”

THE CHAIR: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. Go ahead, Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: For example, we were property managers for the Affordable Housing Development Program, which didn’t require you to be low-income to move into it. We have some folks who would have been part of that. We inherited that whole program, and we just did a whole conversion. Everybody is now going to be paying RGI by the end of four years. We’re just giving some runway, because it will affect seniors more than anything. We have some seniors who may be making just slightly more than HILs. We just didn’t want to impact them without giving them a little bit of room to get used to having to pay 30 percent of their income.

TOM TAGGART: I don’t remember the number, but I recall in your opening statement - I think it was Deputy Minister Morrissey - you commented about a certain number of leases have been transitioned to - I forget the wording. How many of the 12,000 of these leases have been modernized, I’ll call it?

THE CHAIR: Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: The goal is to get everybody in public housing onto rent-geared-to-income. As Pam has mentioned, there are some people who have been given - because of the inherited programs we do have, that will take some time - three to four years for them to either find alternative housing or get to that particular level. The goal is to get everybody on the rent-geared-to-income model. Pam, do you have anything you want to add to that?

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: We’ve also put everybody on the same lease. There were different rules for different authorities across the province, so now everybody is subject to the same lease arrangement.

TOM TAGGART: I guess I misunderstood. That’s what you were talking about. So everybody’s on a common lease today, not a portion. Thank you. I’ll hand it off to my colleague here.

THE CHAIR: MLA Wong.

HON. BRIAN WONG: I know that my colleague across the aisle talked about data points for different systems, and specifically talked about the family doctor wait-list. I just want to suggest that the only thing missing from the data is the tens of thousands of people who have actually found a family doctor. Speaking about data, in 2021, when our new government came in, what was done to really determine what the inventory was across the province? We had different authorities that were managing their own portfolios. Just wondering what was done in order to find out exactly what we had.

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton.

PAM MENCHENTON: That took a little while to get together, believe it or not. We’re trying to straighten this out now, but we’re counting one roof as one unit. We’re making those changes in our system now to ensure a unit is a unit. We do know that we have over 12,000 units. I’m not saying that we don’t understand that that’s how our system is set up right now. We’re calling it property restructuring, and it’s a whole effort that we’re making to ensure that we’re counting one unit.

It makes it easier for us too, to track work orders and to see what’s been done in that particular unit, and to establish a bit of a history around what’s been done and how much money has gone into that unit, for example. The efforts in 2022, when we became an agency, was again to just determine where all of our properties are. We had some legacy properties out there that we needed to bring into the NSPHA fold from an RGI perspective. A lot of work has been done to make sure that we have the right number and that we’re counting all of those units that we have property management oversight on. We actually provide property management oversight for a number of OSD properties as well, in addition to public housing.

BRIAN WONG: Were there vacant units that were discovered back in 2021 that had been sitting empty for a period of time?

PAM MENCHENTON: There were. We had some units that were sitting empty for two, three years. That was a bit of a revelation, and we got on top of that pretty quickly. Obviously, if we have an asset that we can use to put a family or individual in, we want to make sure that we bring those back online.

One of the things that we started to do was change the definition of a vacant unit. At the time - 2021, before the agency was formed - units that were offline weren’t counted in the count. We brought them back into the count so that they weren’t out of sight, out of mind, and we addressed them and made plans to renovate them. That’s no longer the case. We may have a unit that’s offline for up to 120 days, but it’s not for the same reasons. It could be because they need a grand accessibility upgrade or we need to do some energy efficiency work, or the unit’s just in poor condition and we need to strip it back to the studs and redo it. Those are the reasons now, but we did discover that there were units that were offline for several years.

BRIAN WONG: Do you remember approximately how many were offline, and how long it took to get them ready and to get people into those units?

PAM MENCHENTON: I don’t. A little bit before my time, but I can see if we can get that data.

BRIAN WONG: Thank you, I’d appreciate that. I guess the other thing is that I have one public housing for seniors in my constituency. There always seems to be something going on. I know early on we used to get calls all the time saying, “my stove doesn’t work,” or “my water’s dripping.” It just seemed there was a process that wasn’t working all that well at the time. There have definitely been improvements since then. I visit there on a regular basis. We don’t get as many phone calls from them anymore. Can you talk about the systems that have been put in place - the complaint process system, notification system, and communication system - with the residents in our public housing facilities?

THE CHAIR: Ms. Menchenton with three minutes.

PAM MENCHENTON: We have a case-tracking system now - I think I mentioned earlier that every single time we have an interaction with a tenant, we record that interaction so that we can see what the history of that is. We have a 30-day time limit on resolving issues and hopefully less than that, but the 30 days would be the longest time that it would take to resolve an issue.

I’m glad to hear that you’re seeing that things are better because we really have made a concerted effort of making sure that we’re trying to get to client issues in a much more timely way. We’ve also made some changes: for example, we have a unit turnaround team right now in each one of our districts that we didn’t have before dedicated solely to turning around units and flipping them faster. I know that’s not exactly what you asked, but we’ve made some operational and policy changes to support getting to client needs and client issues sooner.

We also have a quality assurance process that’s attached to that case tracking. It’s to make sure that what we said we’re going to do, we are doing. If not, we have a means to identify what those issues are and to remedy those issues.

THE CHAIR: MLA MacLeod.

MARCO MACLEOD: I had highlighted Recommendation 1.19 which I believe hasn’t been filled yet. It’s talking about collaboration with the regional housing authorities and reviewing tenant engagement initiatives to clarify the purpose and frequency requirements of engagement sessions. What steps are being taken right now to fulfill that recommendation?

PAM MENCHENTON: There are a number of things that we’re doing to lay some foundational groundwork toward producing an eventual client engagement strategy. It is the last recommendation that we’re looking at getting done but make no mistake, we’re still meeting with tenants. We still gather them together in common areas, especially in our seniors buildings, and we talk with them about whatever issues may be happening, whether it’s security issues, social issues, or maintenance issues.

We do keep our tenants up to date. We just want to put something in place that has some rigour around that and a schedule to make sure that those tenants are getting those pieces of communication in person, in particular, on a regular basis. It will be different for people who are living in bungalows, for example, or in duplexes because we don’t have those common spaces. We have to make sure that we customize communication for each different situation. Seniors buildings are a little easier because there is typically a common area where we can gather people together.

In the meantime, we are complaint driven as well. Any time that we get a call for a maintenance request, we prioritize that based on safety and we get at those maintenance requests in under 30 days if we can or explain why we can’t because we’re waiting for a part or something like that. We are tightening up and attaching KPIs to how we address those situations. We very much are interested in improving communication with our tenants. We had an appeal . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The time has elapsed for the question. That is the time that we have for questions. I’m wondering if anyone has any closing remarks. Deputy Minister Morrissey.

CHRIS MORRISSEY: If I may, I’ll be very short. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to bring the team in and give you some insight into all of the work that’s been done over the last number of years. As you can tell by Pam in particular, she and her team, their focus is on client services and dealing with our clients first and foremost. Seventy percent of our clients are seniors, and it’s important for us to ensure that we’re keeping all of our clients happy, but certainly, it’s a significant part of our population that are being impacted.

A lot of the work is being done behind the scenes and under the iceberg that people don’t get to see. I just want to acknowledge the 500-plus team within the agency itself across the province who are working tirelessly in order to make sure they’re making improvements to the lives of these Nova Scotians. Our goal is to make housing more affordable, whether that’s in public housing or just for all Nova Scotians in general. I think if you look back on where we were and where we’re going, the trajectory is a very positive one.

[10:45 a.m.]

Can there be improvements? Absolutely, and we welcome feedback, whether it’s from the Auditor General or whether it’s from departments, whether it’s from our stakeholders. This is a part of our continuous improvement cycle, and as you can tell by the comments today, the team takes those comments very seriously and personally. Whatever we can do, we’re constantly thinking about the impact to the clients and making sure we put them first. With the limited resources available to us, we are certainly striving to make sure that we’re making lives for Nova Scotians better. Thank you for the opportunity today.

THE CHAIR: Thank you very much, everyone, for being here. I would also like to echo the remarks from one of my colleagues on this side about the good work happening at the agency and the improvements happening. It is a slow process, and of course, we all want to see it be achieved now, slowly but surely. Thank you very much for the work. That concludes the witnesses’ part of the meeting. You may leave now. I’m sure there will be media who would like to speak with you. We’re going to move on to committee business.

The first thing on committee business is correspondence. We have a letter from the Department of Seniors and Long-term Care. It was the information that was requested from the November 5^th meeting. Does anyone have any comments or discussion on that letter? Okay.

Secondly, we have a letter from the Nova Scotia Health Authority, information requested from the September 10^th meeting. Does anyone have any comments or questions or discussion on that letter? Okay.

Next, we’re going to move on to the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedures - November 19^th Record of Decision. You will find in your package the record of decision. I would like to ask for a motion to approve the Record of Decision as presented. MLA Lachance.

LISA LACHANCE: So moved.

THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. Is there any discussion on this record of decision? Can I call the vote?

All those in favour? Contrary minded? Thank you.

The motion is carried.

We will ask the clerk to begin scheduling those meetings.

We do have a motion that has been sent around. I will ask MLA Lachance to please present the motion that they have.

LISA LACHANCE: To follow up on the recommendations in the AG report, as well as our discussion today, we have a motion:

Whereas Nova Scotians deserve to know the extent to which the housing crisis is increasing the demand for affordable rent-geared-to-income housing;

Therefore be it resolved that this committee write to the Housing Minister requesting that data on public housing wait-list trends, including the total number of households waiting and their average waiting time, be made publicly available on a quarterly basis effective immediately.

THE CHAIR: Everyone was sent that motion. Is there any discussion on the motion? MLA MacLeod.

MARCO MACLEOD: I have a bit of a discussion. I believe the question was asked directly to the department on this, and we heard from them that some of these figures are available and published publicly every quarter. They said that they will take the feedback today and look at additional ways that they can inform Nova Scotians of these figures.

We’re really comfortable offering them the opportunity to go and do that without the need of a formal motion today. We’re going to continue supporting the department as they continue to make progress on this file and keep making these major investments in public housing.

THE CHAIR: Any other discussion? MLA Lachance.

LISA LACHANCE: I take that point. I heard that commitment to review this as well. But I also heard other points moving away from providing that information. I think, given that this has been an ongoing issue since 2022, it would be appropriate to follow up to this meeting - again, to the Housing Minister - reiterating our desire for that information to be publicly available. I don’t think it would undermine anything that the department is doing. I think it would show our support for their work, in fact.

MARCO MACLEOD: If this motion is being proceeded with, I’d ask for a recorded vote on it.

THE CHAIR: The motion will stand as a question. I think we should vote on it. Is there any other discussion on it?

Perhaps we can have a discussion - we’ll see how the vote turns out. I will ask the clerk to conduct a recorded vote on the motion.

[The clerk called the roll.]

[10:52 a.m.]

YEAS NAYS

Hon. Iain Rankin Marco MacLeod

Hon. Derek Mombourquette Hon. Brian Wong

Lisa Lachance Tom Taggart

Susan Leblanc Tim Outhit

Dianne Timmins

THE CLERK: For, 4. Against, 5.

THE CHAIR: The motion is defeated.

MLA Taggart.

TOM TAGGART: I have a motion as well, if I could.

Whereas public housing is a critical asset for Nova Scotians; and

Whereas our government is committed to providing spaces for those who need them most;

Therefore be it resolved that the Public Accounts Committee write a letter for the Department of Growth and Development affirming the position that no persons earning more than $100,000 per year should be placed in a public housing unit.

THE CHAIR: Is there a written copy of that anywhere?

TOM TAGGART: I’ll send it to you.

THE CHAIR: Can you send it to the clerk and have the clerk send it to the committee?

TOM TAGGART: I will, yes.

THE CHAIR: I just have a question about that. You say the wording is - can you reread that, MLA Taggart, please?

TOM TAGGART: Whereas public housing is a critical asset for Nova Scotians; and

Whereas our government is committed to providing spaces for those who need them most;

Therefore be it resolved that the Public Accounts Committee write a letter for the Department of Growth and Development affirming the position that no persons earning more than $100,000 per year should be placed in public housing.

THE CHAIR: Thank you, MLA Taggart. Any discussion?

MLA Lachance.

LISA LACHANCE: I certainly heard MLA Taggart ask those questions during committee. It seemed like the department provided a pretty detailed response to how they’re managing those situations. I think we can support the department in their ongoing processes. I don’t think we’re affirming anything at this moment. We won’t be supporting this motion.

THE CHAIR: Anyone else have any discussion? MLA Mombourquette.

DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: Also for me, we heard today from the department that - and these questions were asked during committee - there are some legacy programs that they’re working with. There’s some significant historic information that allows the department to make a decision like that. For me, I’d be curious to hear more of a definition of what that means. Why in some instances somebody may be living in a unit based on a whole number of reasons. That was an important conversation. That’s something that I think we should give the department the ability to elaborate on. I don’t know if a motion is needed or not to do that, but I would encourage the department to come back and actually explain in more detail why certain situations arise. I’ll leave it at that for now.

Also, the fact that there was no notice of this motion: It’s pretty much a moment where, from a policy perspective, this motion came out of nowhere. There should be due notice of this motion. The member should know that, being on the Public Accounts Committee as long as he’s been. I think this is coming on the fly right now. I have a huge problem from a procedural perspective when it comes to this. It shows disrespect to you as the Chair and the members of this committee for bringing this motion forward. I question why all of a sudden this motion is coming.

I feel like the member has another motive when it comes to why this motion all of a sudden is coming before the committee, and I think that the member could show us all a little respect and follow the processes which he’s talked about. He’s tried to talk through the meeting today because he had concerns about procedures. You had to stop the time for my colleague to speak because he had problems with process. Now here he is, disrespecting the committee and the staff by bringing a motion forward that, obviously, we had no idea was coming. The team that prepares these meetings had no idea it was coming, and I question his motive of why he’s bringing it now to the table. I would argue that this is out of order, that the process has not been followed by the committee, and, through you, I think we all deserve a little more respect from the member for not following the process to bring the motion forward.

THE CHAIR: Thank you, MLA Mombourquette. Technically, there is no procedure that suggests a motion has to come forward in advance, but I will say I agree that motions coming on the floor has been a topic of much discussion at our committees. In fact, often members from this side of the table will vote against a motion because they haven’t seen it in advance. It is true that it is rather ironic that this is now coming forward.

MLA Lachance, did you have your hand up?

LISA LACHANCE: Not to be repetitive, but I have certainly understood from members of this committee, particularly MLA Taggart, that a real concern about seeing things ahead of time or at least seeing things in writing. I have just been constantly refreshing my email, and I don’t see it sitting there. I think as we try and work better together, this has been one of the things that we’ve been trying to improve. I am wondering if that motion has been sent to the clerk. The clerk has indicated they haven’t received it and thus, it can’t be circulated. We can’t have it in front of our eyes to review the wording.

I think, honestly, this government is trying to do everything it can to distract itself from the record on housing. Why aren’t we talking about how much the wait-list has grown? Aren’t you curious about how we could stop the public housing wait-list from growing? Aren’t you curious about what other things we could be doing? I think we should be very concerned - if we’re going to be concerned as a committee, I think we should be concerned about the fact that . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The time for the committee has elapsed. If I’d had a chance, I would have asked to extend. It does require unanimous consent to extend the meeting, as you know. That is it for today. This is off the record, but our next meeting is January 7^th, correct? Happy holidays, everyone. That’s it until 2026.

[The committee adjourned at 11:00 a.m.]